大象传媒

The first batch of children were evacuated from Liverpool in 1939 but my mother didn't want us to be evacuated; evacuation was not compulsory. Lots of friends who stayed behind were killed. We were booked up to go to America with a lot of other evacuees but my mother stopped us going - that ship was sunk with all lives lost. I was 5 when the War started, I lived near to the Docks. Our living conditions were very bad, there was occassional work at the Docks when the ships came in. There was very little food, "scouse" a kind of Lancashire hotpot was our main food it was cooked in a bucket on the fire, it was added to throughout the week. When the air-raid siren went off Dad would take the bucket to the shelter. One time he tripped and spilt the scouse - he put it back into the bucket!

The Docks were the main target for the German bombers, we saw many bombs and many air fights. Through the slits in the roof of the air-raid shelters we could see the dog-fights in the sky; the planes were only just above the chimney pots. In the the beginning we found it exciting, when the bombs dropped. When the sirens went off we ran like hell to the shelters. Our toys were the shrapnel we found after a bombing raid. We could recognise the sound of the German planes.

When the War started "our" air-raid shelter was under the railway arches, the railway arches were about 50 yards long, both ends were boarded up. There were no toilets, only a heap of sand that both adults and children had to use as a toilet. There would be about 300-400 people in there at any one time. When there was a full moon we couldn't use the shelter, the doors were locked so we couldn't get in. The Germans could see the railway lines shining in the moonlight making the shelter an easy target. It was thought we had a better chance of survival outside.

Proper air-raid shelters were built later - with red bricks; these consisted of 4 walls with a door at each end and a big concrete slab for a roof PLUS a toilet. There was a shelter for each street so you didn't have far to go. Liverpool is built like New York - one main street with all the other streets running off it. It was dreadful coming out of the shelters after an attack, the dust and debris was awful but the worse thing was that the sewers were damaged. The shelters saved many lives but they didn't save everybody. Thousands and thousands were killed in Liverpool; you hear about the losses in London and Coventry but not Liverpool.

We stayed in the shelters until the "all-clear" (this was sounded when the German planes were back over the Channel) then us children ran out to look to see what could be scavanged. We were always on the look out for bread and food. There was very little money for food, most of the money went on cigarettes - a ciggie cost half-a- pence. Dad would send me out with half-a- pence to get a ciggie. Eventually we had to move our beds to the shelters and live there. The conditions were bad, absolutely filthy. One day we found an old man lying on our bed. Dad said it was alright as whilst he was there no-one would pinch our blankets. The adults were always singing and praying we were all Catholics and a very close family community. Praying was the Number One priority it seemed to help the adults but it didn't stop the bombs falling.

The night before we were to be evacuated Mum had washed the best clothes we had and had left them drying in front of the fire when we went for the night to the shelter. That night our house had a direct hit and we lost everything, so we had to go in the rags we stood up in; we were filthy dirty from the debris and melted tar. My brother Charlie, sister Mary and myself went for the train that was to take us to Much Wenlock in Shropshire. Our year old twin brothers - Gerald & Francis - had been killed. When we were put on the train we were all crying, all we had was our gas-masks, an apple and orange. We had labels tied to our clothes with our names on.

I was an evacuee, arriving in Much Wenlock in 1941 at the age of 7 never to return to the filth and squalor of Liverpool. When we arrived in Much Wenlock we were taken to a hall where people came and picked out the evacuees they wanted - we were the last to be picked because of the state of our clothes. A lady picked us but she didn't like us and we didn't like her. She took in 8 evacuees, 4 slept at the top of the bed and 4 at the bottom. My sister Mary went to Broseley but when she caught diptheria she was sent back to Liverpool to Wavertree Hospital. We didn't see her for nearly 4 years.

We were moved from our billet on Queen Street to one at the bottom of the Bull Ring. We had to sleep in an old building outside, it was full of chickens; we slept on some old sacks full of straw. There were 3 other evacuees living there. We had to work everyday cleaning the yard. The old buildings are now beautiful houses, when we were there they were just tumbled-down shacks.

Clothes were provided, but they were usually too small or too large. After the war I found out that Red Cross parcels were sent to the evacuees but we never received any.

Going from Liverpool to Much Wenlock was like going from "Hell to Heaven". I was brought up to steal. I had never seen apples on a tree. About 200 children were sent to Much Wenlock, we were always in fights because of Religion; we were Catholics the locals Church of England - "catlicks & proddydogs". We went to school down the Bull Ring in the mornings and they went to school in the afternoons. The headmaster was terrifying, he took an instant dislike to the scruffy evacuees. I remember an evacuee taking the cane off the Headmaster and breaking it over his knee. He called me a Liverpool Gutter-Rat" and knocked the hell out of me. Many is the time I have stood in the queue to get my daily ration of whacks. He would put your head between his legs and smack your bottom with the flat of his hand - phew, I can still feel it to this day!

It was a regular occurrence for the teachers to fight with the Liverpool children, it didn't happen to the Wenlock children. I can also remember the time when 3 of the older boys were rolling on the floor fighting with the policeman. He had caught them breaking the Church windows.

Looking back we evacuees were 1st class hooligans, the policeman was for ever chasing us through the streets. Fifty or sixty of us evacuees would congregate in the Square - the Square in Much Wenlock is quite small - so it was bedlam. There were no street lights and the gas mantles had been broken, to us playing the dark was like being back home.

We were teased about our accents and the fact that we used to bless ourselves was another mickey-taker. We evacuees had a small school and a Catholic Church behind the Post Office in Sheinton Street, later to become the well-known "Owl Cafe". Because of the constant air-raids in Liverpool I didn't go to school very often so at the age of 7 I couldn't read or write.

When I was 9 I had a delivery round after school delivering bread for 6d a week (two and a half pence in today's money). Two older boys who disliked the evacuees pushed me over and took the bread. The shopkeeper said I was not big enough to fight the big boys - so he gave me the sack. Can you beat that? Sacked at 9 years old!

When the Yanks came to Buildwas they were very good to the evacuees, the first people who were, they gave us chewing gum. I ran away to the camp in the middle of the night. To a lad brought up in Liverpool it was easy to get pass the guards. I went into a tent and found lots of chocolate. I ate and ate, I gorged myself, I got stomach pains and the runs, it was pouring out of me. I called for my mate Jake, Jake came and told me that I was a stupid idiot and that I had not been eating chocolate but laxative!

He put me in a Jeep and took me back to Mrs X, he woke her up at three o'clock in the morning. Mrs X took me out into the backyard and hung me by my braces to the water pump in order to clean me up. The evacuees cried when the Americans went back as they were some of the few people who had given us anything. They could see the state we were in and could see that we were not dressed as normal kids.

The Italian prisoners-of-war took to us, they were brilliant at making things out of bits of wood, they would sit round the fire and with branding irons would make patterns on the wood; they would give us what they made as toys. The POWs wore overalls with orange circles on. They were supervised but not shackled, they had to dig trenches and in their breaks they would sit round the open fire.

The one good time I can remember was when the evacuees were treated to a free showing of "Snow White", that was probably in 1943.

Each month a charabang came to Wenlock from Liverpool bringing parents to see their children, my parents came if they could get a place. They would stay for the afternoon and brought us food parcels and shrapnel - shrapnel was as precious as gold to us. Mrs X took ours away so the next lot I got I buried in the garden. I often wonder if it is still there. I didn't worry too much about my parents but I did worry about my sister Mary in the Hospital.

When the War ended the news spread like wildfire. Hundreds of people took wood to Windmill Hill for a bonfire. They had probably been planning this for some time as they knew we were going to win. We had a huge bonfire and burnt an effigy of Hitler. We had torches made from sacking tied to sticks and dipped in tar, I asked for one, and was told if I was big enough to carry a torch I could have one. I got one.

From the top of the Hill it was wonderful to see the torchlight procession coming up the street. It was absolutely brilliant. The following night the Americans gave a firework display, the first I had ever seen.

On V.J. night we had an extremely elaborate firework display. That was the first and last time I have ever seen the Square full of people dancing.

After the War there were about half-a-dozen of us that didn't go back to Liverpool, we had to fit in with the locals and go to the same school. The first hour of each day was a C of E service so we Catholics had to sit in a classroom to wait for lessons to begin.

My parents had come to Wenlock before the end of the War as they had nowhere to live in Liverpool. We couldn't live with them straight away as they had to go into board and lodgings. Then my mother found a place to rent, we had 1 room upstairs and 1 room downstairs. The toilet was 50 yards away at the bottom of the lane, the potty under the bed was always in use!

Money was very short and many a time we had to live on sauce butties for dinner and sugar butties for tea - that was 2 slices of bread with sauce or suger filling. On Sundays we had a treat it was a "connie onnie buttie" - condensed milk. Once a week it was my job to go to the Council Offices with 2 small medicine bottles for our weekly ration of cod liver oil and orange juice.

My parents got a Council house and things just got better. Mum was a dressmaker so she got lots of work, she was famous for her wedding dresses. Dad worked at the Naval Arnaments Depot at Ditton Priors, a bus went from Much Wenlock to Ditton Priors every day. My youngest brother and sister - Frank and Anne - were born in Wenlock.

I have been asked if I became hardened by my experiences of Liverpool in the War. The answer has to be yes, we saw our friends dead bodies being carried out of their house and my brother carried on arguing about a marble! We saw such terrible things and such destruction that the only way to get through it was to be tough. My family had nothing left in Liverpool to go back to so we stayed; we had moved from Hell to Heaven.

I still live in Much Wenlock with my wife and my dogs. I run marathons for charity - I have raised over 拢30,000 - because of this I was presented to HM Queen Elizabeth when she came to Much Wenlock in 2003. Much Wenlock is the birthplace of the Modern Olympics.

This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Muriel Palmer(volunteer) of Age Concern Shropshire Telford & Wrekin on behalf of Jimmy MOORE (author) and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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